Dolls' House
by tashasfic
Summary: Of military bandaids and unconditional love.


Dolls' House  
  


Disclaimer: The X-men aren't mine.

Note: This takes place before evolution. (Pre-evoverse)

* * *

He found her, after a thorough search of the mansion, in her room. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her unbrushed red hair carelessly lying over her shoulders, an intent expression across her face, as she stared, almost unblinkingly at the dollhouse in front of her.  
  
It was an amazing creation. Even he, adult that he was, had to admit that. It was large and unmistakably Victorian. Its wooden door and window frames, were polished, gleaming ebony; its solid little chimney sat atop the shingled, sloping roof, looking so real, that it would hardly surprise someone to see puffs of smoke floating out of it. It was a dollhouse any girl would have been proud to own.  
  
The narrow hallway led to a drawing room and dining room, complete with its upholstered furniture. The pictures on the walls hung in gilt frames, and all the rooms with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms had plush carpeting. The kitchen itself, was as well stocked as any housewife could hope her kitchen to be, from the miniature plates and tiny stove, to the Lilliputian sized cutlery.  
  
The crowning glory, however, was an artfully concealed light switch at the side of the house, which, when flicked on, would cause everything from the exquisite amber lamp in the master bedroom, to the night light on the porch to give off a dull glimmer, making the house fit enough for any king, if only he could get inside.  
  
The occupants of the house, sat, carefully placed by her, around the dining table. A mother, a father, a son and daughter, each filling one of the beautifully carved chairs. A baby, who could have been of either sex, lay swathed in blankets in its cradle, presumably asleep.  
  
"Hey Redd," he addressed her, crouching down to see what she was doing, his military dog tags hitting against his chest, as he sat, imitating her position.  
  
"Hey Logan," she answered the stocky, but well built man.  
  
"Playing with your dolls?" he questioned, stating the obvious. She shrugged in reply, but chose not to answer; as if to leave what she was doing open for debate.  
  
"What's the family doing?" he asked her, nodding towards the seated dolls, who smiled back at him, quite unconcerned by the intense scrutiny they were under.  
  
"Eating lunch," she answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's one o'clock," she added.  
  
"I know. That's why I came to call you down, but seeing that you're still in your pajamas, I might have to make you eat breakfast instead."  
  
She shrugged once again at his words. "You'll can eat without me. I don't want to come down."  
  
"How come?" he asked.  
  
"Ororo cooked spinach today. I smelt it," she answered, naming her least favorite vegetable.  
  
He wrinkled his nose in disgust at her words. "I thought she'd abandoned her 'eat healthy campaign'," he said, naming his fellow instructor's latest food fad.  
  
"No," she sighed. "It's still there."  
  
"What do you say we sneak out and get a pizza instead?"  
  
"No thank you."  
  
"Are you feeling alright?" he asked her, concerned by her uncharacteristically dull behavior.  
  
"Yes," she replied.  
  
"Then what's the matter?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Well, you've been moping around in your room since you woke up. That's not the girl I know."  
  
"I could be someone else. I have other memories."  
  
"Ah, but then you wouldn't be my favorite girl who always tells me when something is wrong, would you?" he replied, gently brushing back a strand of hair which had fallen in front, obscuring her face.  
  
"Promise you wont laugh if I tell you?"  
  
"I promise."  
  
Sighing, she pointed out the only vacant seat at the dining table.  
  
"You lost your doll?" he asked her.  
  
No; she's right here," the redhead replied, picking up the doll, which had been lying, sprawled on the ground by her side.  
  
"Then what's the problem?"  
  
"She can't go in anymore," she said gravely, as if confiding an important secret.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I dropped her by mistake when I was trying to telekinetically move her to the table, and now she's hurt," she explained, her serious green eyes fixed upon his face, as if checking for any signs of laughter or ridicule. Finding none, she went on, "She got a crack over here, see?" the redhead said, pushing back the doll's hair, so that a narrow, jagged rack could be seen. "Now she can't go back to the house because she's different. No one wants things which are different."  
  
He took the doll from her hands. "Different doesn't necessarily mean bad, Jeannie," he told her.  
  
"But her family doesn't know that. They're scared that she'll change them as well. They don't want her anymore."  
  
Children have strange ways of expressing their hidden thoughts and emotions, and in his little time around the young girl, Logan had developed a strangely keen sense of being able to interpret her true feelings.  
  
"Jean, your family loves you. That's why they sent you here."  
  
She remained silent for a few seconds, a single tear trickling down her face, before asking in a strangled sort of tone, "Then why are they scared of me?"  
  
"They're not scared," he tried to explain. "They just don't understand."  
  
"Why?" she asked, her voice cracking as her single tear turned into a full- fledged sob. "Grown-ups are supposed to know everything. Why don't they know I wont hurt them?"  
  
H paused, unsure of how to answer her pathetic plea. "I don't know, Jeannie," he told her, gently drawing the crying girl into his arms, where she lay for a moment, sobs raking her small body, her warm forehead against the cool, metal tags around his neck.  
  
"There's also a hole," she hiccupped into his shirt where she had hidden her face, after she had calmed down, her tears ceasing.  
  
"What hole is that?"  
  
"In her heart," she said, picking up the discarded doll and running a finger over its wooden chest.  
  
"Because she can't be with her family?"  
  
"Yeah," she whispered, her voice close to inaudible.  
  
"I think we can fix that," he told her.  
  
"We can?" she asked, locking her hopeful eyes on his face.  
  
He nodded. "You got any band-aids?" he asked her in return.  
  
"Yes," she said, getting up and walking to a draw in her bedside table, from where she pulled out a strip of band-aids, each one with a colorful collection of dinosaurs printed on them. Handing it to him, she flopped down beside him on the floor, resuming her earlier cross-legged pose.  
  
"Can I take her shirt off?" he asked the girl, taking the doll from her hands.  
  
The redhead nodded, and he, lifting up the doll's shirt, tore open the wrapping of one of the band-aids, and carefully stuck it over the doll's chest.  
  
"There," he said, handing the doll back to her.  
  
"Will it fix the hole?" she asked with a childish innocence.  
  
"I think it will."  
  
"What about her family?"  
  
"Some things can't be fixed Redd, because they need no fixing. Being different doesn't mean you have to be fixed."  
  
"Will her family love her again?"  
  
"I hope so."  
  
"Me to," she said softly, seating the doll at the last and final place at the dining table.  
  
"They look happy. I think the hole is fixed," she said simply.  
  
"What about you?" he asked her.  
  
"I'm happy for her."  
  
"What about for yourself?"  
  
She slowly shook her head. "My hole wont go. There's no band-aid big enough for that."  
  
He thought for a moment before saying, "I think I may have one that'll work."  
  
"You do? Where?"  
  
He pulled the metal chain with its dangling military dog tags off from around his neck, and placed it around hers. "That's it. Whenever you feel sad or the hole hurts, you can look down at them and remember that I love you more than anyone else in the world, okay?"  
  
He knew he wasn't the family she craved so much, but unconditional love has a healing power like no other, and he hoped that his would help her heal.  
  
Gently, she fingered the cool, metal tags with the numbers roughly scratched into the smooth surface.  
  
"You know what?" she asked looking at him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I think the hole is a little smaller. Your band-aid really does work."  
  
"Good. Now what do you say we go fill the hole in my stomach with some pizza?" he asked her grinning.  
  
"I say, 'Can we have extra cheese?'"  
  
"Yup."  
  
"Okay, but you have to tell Ororo that we're not eating her spinach."  
  
"I'm on it," he told her, getting up and walking towards her room door.  
  
"Logan," she said, just as he opened the door. "I love you too. You're the best."  
  
With those words, she went to her bathroom to dress, her 'band-aids' clinking together against the now healing hole in her heart.

* * *

Feedback is, as always greatly appreciated. 


End file.
